Cybersecurity products rolling out at HIMSS19

Atos has launched a cybersecurity suite, Extreme Networks is focused on the Internet of Things, and Interbit Data has unveiled a vault for use in cyber-crises.

Cybersecurity is a major theme at HIMSS19, and a variety of vendors are introducing technologies designed to better protect healthcare information at rest and in motion, as well as positively identify system users.

A cybersecurity suite

Atos, for example, has launched a cybersecurity offering that extends from security consulting services to now include managed security services, cloud security and identity management, increasing security at all levels of patient care, the company said.

Atos’ identity management enables healthcare organizations to secure patient information by controlling and auditing access to confidential data through biometrics, two-factor and public key infrastructure authentication, as well as other authentication methods.

“Our end-to-end healthcare cybersecurity portfolio is a comprehensive solution that helps healthcare leaders properly align security with their clinical, financial and business objectives,” said Rick Stevens, senior vice president and head of healthcare, Atos North America.

Atos is at HIMSS19 in booth 2979.

Defending the Internet of Things

Elsewhere on the HIMSS19 floor, Extreme Networks has launched Defender for IoT, what it calls a “simple” and “easy to use” security technology to help organizations secure unsecured IoT devices. The company said even non-technical staff can use it to isolate and protect both wired and wireless IoT devices from cyberattacks.

IoT devices present two major security flaws for healthcare organizations today. Most lack embedded security – they were built to run on private networks where the assumption was it was tightly controlled, and device-level security wasn’t required. Manufacturers never considered that the private enterprise network could be connected to the public internet, and therefore the devices may run out-of-date operating systems, have hardcoded passwords, and/or lack anti-virus and firewall capabilities.

And IoT devices typically are deployed in a flat or unsegmented network so that if breached, the attacker can gain access to sensitive areas of the network.

Extreme Networks’ Defender for IoT, part of its Smart OmniEdge suite, solves these challenges in various ways, the company said. Defender for IoT is simple to deploy and easy to maintain; users simply plug the Defender Adapter into an Ethernet port and run the associated application, the company explained. The Defender application learns the typical traffic patterns of network devices and dynamically generates a security policy that locks down what a device communicates with and how it can communicate, automating edge network security for the enterprise.

Once initial device profiles have been dynamically generated, non-technical staff can place the adapter between the device and the network and apply the appropriate security profile using a drop-down menu, the vendor added.

Defender for IoT also allows users to segment groups of IoT devices into multiple, isolated secure zones, reducing the network attack surface. Users can also centrally monitor and track device usage, location and roaming. This helps customers mitigate the risk of an attacker gaining access to more sensitive areas of the network, the company said.

And Defender for IoT works with any vendor’s IP network, providing in-line protection of IoT devices and segmentation through IPSec tunnels, without network changes, the vendor explained.

Extreme Networks is at HIMSS19 in booth 8559.

A vault for crises

Over in booth 400-85, Interbit Data, which focuses on downtime business continuity for healthcare, has launched its NetSafe CyberCrisis Vault system. The vault, the company said, provides a crucial layer of assurance for hospitals to access critical patient information when their system is locked down due to ransomware or other cyberattacks.

The CyberCrisis Vault serves as the first response tool to get through the immediate impact of a cyber-crisis lockdown. The vault maintains current and essential patient information including MPI, census, eMar and patient forms, on a protected NetSafe server isolated from the breached HCIS network. The vault buys a hospital time to continue to care for patients until the system is restored or a hospital’s disaster recovery plan can be put into place, the company said.

During a cyber-crisis, designated, trained personnel are given access to the vault and follow a predefined workflow to view and/or print information, Interbit Data explained. They can also transport the data on a detachable hard drive secured with NetSafe to another location.

The vault allows the IT team to focus on system restoration and patient privacy protection without interruption, the vendor added. It provides an immediate bridge to a comprehensive strategy to address attacks by enabling access to current patient information when the system is first locked down, the vendor said.